Another Day, Another Bell
by CullenGirl1901
Summary: A short story about the struggle of working with Tom Nook, it was definitely not the quiet little retail job that you were expecting...


*Bzzt Bzzt*

I groaned out loud when my alarm went off early in the morning. I reached my hand out from underneath the covered and slammed my hand down blindly onto the bedside table trying to silence the damned thing. It was time for work.

I retreated my hand back into the warmth and lay still for a few minutes until the alarm buzzed again. Damn, I didn't turn it off I just hit snooze. That's when I decided to sit up and turn off the alarm properly.

I looked around my small attic bedroom, the sun was peaking in through a gap in the curtains and it lit up the space. There wasn't much to the room, just my bed, a bedside table, a small chest of drawers and a small pile of dirty clothes on the floor. I couldn't really afford much else. Hence the job I was dreading so much.

At first, the job seemed like it was going to be simple, no big deal. Little did I know I was getting into the worst deal of my life.

I showed up in this town a few years ago, I had just left home for the first time and was excited to be independent. My parents worried about me leaving that it took a lot of convincing to let me go. I was just moving one town over, no big deal. But to them, it was like sending their only child out to the war, would they ever see me again? Would I call? Would I be able to make a meal without burning the house down? These were all questions that they asked me several times a day until I had finally scraped up enough money to get out the door.

When I arrived the first thing I had to do was look for a place to live, it wasn't too hard, there were only a few places available in the small village. That didn't stop me from visiting each of them and thoroughly inspecting each one until I found the one to call 'home'.

My 'home' was a tiny cottage in the south part of town, close to the beach. The houses I visited were basically identical so the only real factor in deciding which one I wanted was the location. Which is all that really mattered. At least by the beach, I could pretend I was somewhere more exotic than where I really was. A tiny, simple village with two shops and about ten houses. The village was advertised as 'new' and 'up and coming' but I have yet to see any evidence of either of those things.

Once I had unpacked my things and was settled I went out to look around town. There wasn't much to it, but I enjoyed the quiet. Everyone in the town was so friendly too, it didn't take long before I was being greeted by neighbours and gift baskets. It was the kind of community that made me feel included and supported, which made it easier for me to adjust to being away from home.

One of the first things I asked everyone in town was where I could get a job, I explained that I had come to town with very little to my name and they all very sympathetic. They started off by asking me to do small favours for them and in return, they would help me out with things I needed. This was nice for a while but soon I felt like I was becoming a burden to them.

Sure, it was nice to get some furniture for my small house and more clothes, but it wasn't long before I had to look for more sustainable work. These lovely townsfolk could only provide so much for me. It was time to look for something better and stop asking the neighbours if they had a spare sofa that they weren't using.

I asked around town and found out there was only one place that was hiring. The last person that was working there had quit and so they needed someone to start right away. I decided that this was my chance to finally become independent and make my own living.

Next thing you know, I was being invited to interview for the job. I tried to dress appropriately for the interview, it was hard to do when most of the clothes I owned were hand-me-downs from my mom or the neighbours and didn't fit right. But luckily, I had one nice dress that I brought from home, and it was the one that was going to make me look like a young professional and get me hired.

The job was in the local shop that seemed to be the only place to go to buy anything really. It was a catch-all kind of shop, if you want something, you can most likely find it there. It was a small family run business and the owner also happened to own a lot of property in town. In fact, the owner was the one that rented my house to me. He was a short man with dark circles under his eyes and he always wore the same suit, sometimes with an apron over it if he was working in the shop.

I thought it was going to be awkward for my landlord to interview me for a job, but it didn't seem to be any kind of issue. I was treated just like anyone else coming in for a job interview and I was basically hired on the spot. This was surprising to me as I had no prior experience, but I was told I would learn on the job. All I had to do was stop by early the next day to pick up my uniform and I could start working right away. I couldn't believe my luck.

I looked over to where my uniform hung on the back of my door. It was a dull green polo shirt with a leaf on the front pocket and a matching hat. It wasn't the most flattering thing in the world, but no one has a _nice_ work uniform.

When I arrived for work for the first time I was excited. I arrived there earlier than expected because I couldn't wait to get started and start earning some money. It would be great to be able to let my parents know that I was surviving out here on my own. Maybe if they knew I had a job they would worry less. My mother wrote to me constantly when I first moved away from home, I couldn't go a day without getting a new letter from her. She wasn't big on texting or email, she felt like it would be nice to get something more personal and reminded me of home.

The owner of the store, Tom Nook, arrived half an hour later and found me sitting on the ground outside the store. He told me to get up and I raised quickly. He gave me a slow look up and down and I could tell he disapproved of my appearance, it was very different from the shiny exterior I had during our interview. I was tired, and my hair was pinned up from my face and I was wearing a huge baggy hoodie and some leggings. I didn't bother making a fuss knowing I was going to be getting a uniform.

I followed Tom into the store as he began to turn on the lights, he walked towards the back where his office was to get me my uniform. He kindly let me change in his office while he continued to prepare the shop for the day. When I emerged, he smiled approvingly and handed me a huge sack of fertiliser.

"Plant these outside, we could do with some new plants out there for the Spring." He said pointing to the potted plants by the entrance.

"Okay, any particular way you want them to be planted?" I asked. I was confused, this was not what I thought I was going to be doing as part of working in this store. I thought I would just stand behind a cash register all day.

"No, just make it look pretty."

I stood there for a little while longer in case he was joking but he wasn't. When he saw I was still standing there he just raised his eyebrow and I was on my way out into the cold.

I had never planted anything into the ground in my life, I wasn't even sure I was doing it right, but I hoped for the best as I began lifting the plants from their pots and putting them into the ground. I decided to put them in rows around the front and sides of the store. I was also given some small trees to plant, which I decided to plant further away.

When I was done I was covered in fertiliser and dirt. I was going to head back into the store when Tom came out of the shop to see the progress I was making. He was surprised that I had finished the task so quickly, but he didn't dwell before handing me my next task.

I asked him if he wanted me to go home and shower and he didn't comment on it instead he told me I needed to post his new advertisement on the bulletin board by the town hall. I sighed, knowing that the town hall was on the opposite side of the town from the store but agreed to the task.

As I walked through town I felt very self-conscious about how I looked. Thankfully it was still early and there weren't many people around, so I was able to make it to the town hall without running into anyone.

Once the advertisement was posted I rushed home to take a quick shower. While I couldn't do anything about how dirty my uniform was I could at least be clean underneath. I rushed back to work for my next task, it couldn't be worse than gardening first thing in the morning.

I almost laughed when I came back, and I was handed some pens and paper to write letters to the townsfolk telling them of the amazing deals at the store. I was told it was important to maintain a personal relationship with the customers, so every letter needed to be personalised instead of sending them generic fliers.

The town wasn't big on technology so emailing wasn't an option and neither was online shopping, so I had to manually find out what customers liked to buy and advertise specifically to every villager. I was thankful that it was a small town so there weren't many letters to write but I feared that one day the shop would become more popular and I would spend the rest of my life writing to villagers to remind them that there's a deal on something. I needed to find a way to convince Tom Nook that mass fliers were the way to go, no one ever read them anyway.

After returning from the post office, I thought I would be done for the day but sadly I was handed a bunch of packages that needed to be delivered to some people in town. People may not have been able to online shop, but Tom Nook did offer a delivery service so I once again, set out into the town.

This task was the hardest as I did not own any form of transport, I just ended up dragging around this sack of parcels. A lot of the parcel recipients took pity in me when I showed up at their door covered in sweat and dirt holding their package. Apparently, they all knew the struggle of working for Tom Nook but none of them wanted to warn me of it before I started work. I think they just wanted me to get the job, so I would stop freeloading off them.

Finally, I returned to the store for the final time that day and Tom said that my training was finally over. I was now an official employee. I felt relieved, but I was also concerned about how many other jobs would come up now that I was a full employee. Would I always have to run around town like a mad woman doing various tasks for a man that seemed to do nothing but walk around his store pestering customers to buy things?

I tried to remain optimistic about work on the second day, I thought that maybe I was just being dramatic about it because it was tough, and it was my first ever job. Maybe I had to go through the worst of the work now to prepare me for later in the job.

Unfortunately, that was not the case, the second day I was once again made to be errand girl, running around town, trying not to be a hot sweaty mess as I interacted with customers and made calls to other businesses to do other tasks.

Today was no exception, I dragged myself out of bed to prepare myself for the torture of the job. I wanted to quit because I felt like I was doing nothing other than working all day every day but the very little money I was making was covering my rent, so I needed to keep up the work.

When I got to the shop, Tom was already gathering some new plants that needed to be planted after the old ones had been trampled on by customers. I could tell it was going to be a long day, but I tried to look on the bright side, we were closing for renovations tomorrow. But until then, it was time to work.

As I stepped back out into the crisp morning air I took a deep breath and reminded myself that this was just another day I had to get through to get to where I wanted to be. It looked like it was going to be a long journey to a point where I could live comfortably but I knew I had to work hard if I was going to get anywhere.

So, after spending a minute to enjoy the quiet of the morning I put my gloves on and began digging out the old flowers. Everybody starts somewhere, and I guess this was going to be where my start was, I just needed to figure out my next step…

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 **Author's Note: Just a little one chapter story that I started months ago while I was struggling along in my real life job. I finally got around to finishing it and am so excited to finally share it.**

 **I hope you liked it, it's been a long time since I've written something new. So let me know what your thoughts, reviews are always appreciated!**

 **~ CullenGirl1901 x**


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